Iran for Continued Talks with G5+1: MP

Service : Politic

TEHRAN, March 11 (ICANA) – A member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission has voiced support for continued talks between Iran and G5+1 to follow up Tehran’s legal rights.

Friday, March 11, 2011 1:27:57 PM

Speaking to ICANA, Abdolmohammad Babaahmad Milani said: “What is important is to go on with the negotiations within the framework of reasonable agreements.” He said it was Iran’s diplomatic task to continue the negotiations.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) have expressed readiness for further talks with Iran, calling on Tehran to show a more “pragmatic attitude.”

"We remain ready to participate actively in the process with Iran. We expect Iran to demonstrate a pragmatic attitude and to respond positively to our proposal and to our openness toward dialogue and negotiations. The door remains open," AFP quoted Russian governor Grigory Berdennikov as saying on behalf of the P5+1 in the Austrian capital city of Vienna on Wednesday.

Iran and the group of P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, the US plus Germany) held two rounds of multifaceted talks in Geneva in December 2010 and in the Turkish city of Istanbul in January this year.

The Iranian delegation was headed by Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili and European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also led representatives from the P5+1.

In their first joint statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-member Board of Governors since March 2009 on Wednesday, the six countries called on Iran to “cooperate fully” with the UN nuclear agency.

Berdennikov also pointed to the comprehensive Iran-P5+1 talks and said, "We came to Geneva and Istanbul with a constructive spirit and proposed in Istanbul several practical ideas aimed at building confidence and to facilitate the engagement of a constructive dialogue with Iran on the basis of reciprocity and step-by-step approach."

"We look to Iran to engage in future in a similarly constructive spirit," he added, claiming that the sides reached no "substantive result" in Istanbul.

The remarks came after Iran's IAEA envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh on Wednesday expressed Tehran's readiness to continue comprehensive talks with major world powers.

“Just as [it was] agreed in the Geneva talks, and as Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili stated during negotiation in Istanbul, the Islamic Republic of Iran is completely prepared to continue talks with the P5+1 on mutual issues,” Soltanieh told the IAEA Board of Governors.

Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano on Monday confirmed that Iran is not after a nuclear arms program.

"We are not saying that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. We have concerns and we want to clarify the matter," he said.

"Full implementation by Iran of its binding obligations is needed to establish international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," Amano added.

Iran has vehemently refuted allegations leveled by the US and its allies against the country, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran has a right to use nuclear technology for peaceful applications.